One advocate of repeal says the issue is one of individual rights. An opponent counters seat-belt freedom fighters' only right would be ''to be splattered all over their windshields.''

Radio talk show host Jerry Williams in Boston helped lead an effort to put the question on the ballot in November.

''We're not in favor of death, but I feel very strongly about this issue of freedom,'' he told a legislative committee.

''Never in all my years on the air, through Watergate and Vietnam, have I seen such passion. This is the greatest repeal effort since Prohibition.''

In Nebraska, attorney Robert Cashioli collected 38,528 signatures to bring the issue to a vote. There is ''too much of an intrusion on privacy,'' he says, even though he once broke his neck in a car accident and now almost always wears a belt.

To date, 27 states have some form of seat-belt law. Preliminary studies indicate they work.

Statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show fatalities dropped an average of 7 percent in the eight states where belt usage was mandatory for at least three months of 1985.

NHTSA spokesman Hal Paris says the number of motorists using belts in those states has soared from 15 to 20 percent to 40 to 50 percent.

In addition, U.S. Department of Transportation statistics show fatality rates significantly lower in countries where seat-belt laws have been on the books longer. Sweden's highway death rate fell 46 percent and belt usage rose to 79 percent.

Surveys conducted for Traffic Safety Now Inc., an auto industry-sponsored lobby for seat-belt laws, show national support for requirements at 71 percent.

''It's not just the victims and the victims' families that are affected by the failure to use seat belts,'' he says. ''We all pay medical costs which are too high and we all pay millions in auto insurance that we will no longer have to pay.''

Massachusetts State Sen. Salvatore Albano is more blunt. He says repeal advocates want ''the right to be splattered all over their windshields.''

The pro-seat belt forces have won most of the court fights. In Nebraska a district court judge labeled the law ''a proper exercise of the state's police power that does not deprive plaintiff of any fundamental right, liberty or freedom.''

''It is clear this is not a fundamental issue of human privilege or freedom,'' echoes Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe.

He told a Massachusetts legislative committee earlier this year that government already regulates most aspects of driving.

A Grand Rapids, Mich., judge, however, vehemently disagrees and is refusing to fine people who pleaded guilty to not wearing belts.

Kent County District Judge Steven Servaas says he believes the law is unconstitutional, but has been unable to issue that ruling because no one has challenged a seat-belt ticket in his court.

Since New York became the first state to require drivers to buckle up in December 1984, legislatures in 26 other states have approved various forms of seat-belt mandates. In Nevada, lawmakers have tied enforcement to federal approval for a 65-mph speed limit.

The impetus for the explosion of state laws is a decision by U.S. Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole involving efforts by automakers to avoid the mandatory installation of air bags or other passive restraints. Dole ordered phased-in use of air bags or automatic belts in 1989 models unless states with two-thirds of the nation's population enact belt laws. Auto manufacturers have taken that as a cue to push for individual state laws.

Many states have sought to sidestep the controversy by failing to make their laws match the federal model. California and the District of Columbia have provisions where the local law automatically would die if passive restraint standards were revoked.

Other variations include making a citation secondary to another violation or setting the fine below the $25 recommended by Dole.

Joan Claybrook, National Highway Traffic Safety Commission administrator under President Carter and now president of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen group, fears Dole will sidestep those legal protests in an effort to keep the loophole open.

Claybrook notes Dole's ruling is already being challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

The action filed by State Farm Insurance Co. and a number of consumer groups charges Dole does not have the authority to leave automakers with a way out.